The Southern Bangkok Criminal Court approved an arrest warrant Thursday for an Asian man for dropping a plastic bag with an explosive device inside from the footbridge across Sathon canal on Aug 17, which detonated in the water the next day.
"Today the Southern Bangkok Criminal Court approved an arrest warrant against a man of unknown nationality" over the second blast based on CCTV footage, national police spokesman Prawut Thawornsiri said in a statement released late Thursday.
The man has been charged with "illegal possession of an explosive device, illegally detonating a bomb and premeditated attempted murder", Pol Lt Gen Prawut said.
Police have not definitively linked the two blasts. "We have not yet concluded whether the two blasts are linked to each other," Pol Lt Gen Prawut said when asked whether the second blast was related to the fatal attack at the Erawan.
He said he believed it was "likely" that two different men carried out the shrine and canal blasts.
Thursday's second warrant describes the suspect in the blue shirt as an Asian male, aged 25 to 30, 170 centimetres tall, with yellow-white skin, thick eyebrows, a high-bridged nose, and thick hair.
The arrest warrant for the primary suspect - the man in the yellow T-shirt - describes him as a foreign man with shaggy hair and thick-rimmed glasses.
Blurry CCTV footage shows the man in the blue t-shirt carrying something heavy in a plastic bag as he approaches the Sathon ferry pier. In the video, he goes to the side of a footbridge, places the bag down and then uses his mobile phone.
Around a minute later he pushes the bag into the canal with his foot, kicking up a visible splash of water.
The following day - shortly after 1pm on Tuesday - an explosion went off in the canal at the same spot.
An explosion in the water occurred on Tuesday, Aug 18 (the day after the Erawan shrine bombing) where the man in the blue shirt had kicked the object.
Ten days on from the Erawan shrine blast, which killed 14 foreigners in Thailand's worst single mass-casualty attack, the police have made no arrests.
Criticism of the police investigation has been strong because few facts have been clearly established, even including the type of explosives used in the bombs. Authorities have been accused of rapidly hosing down the crime scene at the shrine before all forensic evidence was recovered so it could be reopened to reassure the public - especially foreign tourists - that security in the city was back to normal.
Police have not determined a clear motive for the shrine bombing, which killed 14 foreigners and six Thais, and injured more than 120 others. Possible suspects mentioned so far include separatists from the deep South, a Turkish group seeking to avenge the forced repatriation of ethnic Uighurs to China, political opponents of Thailand's military government and feuding factions within the security services.
Deputy national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda, who will take over a chief on Oct 1 and has been assigned to head the bombing investigation, said he had made up his mind about one thing: The bombers are not Thais.
The assault was "too brutal for Thais to inflict on their compatriots".
Investigators have identified two phone numbers they believe may be linked to the suspect in the deadly Erawan shrine bombing last week in Bangkok, said Pol Gen Somyot Pumpunmuang, the national police chief.
Police checked "tens of thousands" of phone numbers before narrowing the search to the two suspicious numbers, he said. He gave no further details on that line of inquiry.
Police are investigating some foreign groups who might have been involved, though the probe has not yet found evidence to link them to the blast, he said.
As far as the investigation goes, the police have some idea of who might be behind the bombing. “But we still cannot reveal it,” Pol Gen Chakthip said.
Pol Gen Chakthip declined to comment on whether there might be a link between the blast and the right-wing Turkish militant group, the Grey Wolves.
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Bangkok-based security analyst Anthony Davis theorised the Grey Wolves may have staged the attack to retaliate for the government’s repatriation of 109 Uighurs to China on July 9.
Pol Gen Chakthip said police have shared information about possible attacker groups with Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, the Internal Security Operations Command, the Special Branch and other intelligence units.
